Push to Open
by rhymenocerous
Summary: "Did you ever stop to think that even so, Kate Price still approached you for help after your meeting? Why would she have done that if she thought you didn't care? Or if she thought you were useless and inadequate?" DL post-ep oneshot for 7x15 - Vigilant


**A/N: So, remember after Season 7 ended and I promised to do some post-episode one-shots over the summer? Yeah, so that didn't really happen. I did start a few of them with the best of intentions, but… well, the summer was kind of a bust for me, writing-wise and those little stories kind of got shelved with the rest of my half-finished thought nuggets.**

**Anyway, I was gearing up for Season 8 last week by re-watching last season. When I got to the episode Vigilante I remembered I had started a one-shot that I actually really liked. So, I went back, dusted it off and began working on it again. I'm not sure it's all that great, but I figured there was no harm in sharing it. Just, you know… be gentle, okay? Pretty please? *bats eyelashes***

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><p>Lindsay walked briskly down the hallway, peering into offices and labs, looking for her husband. She'd just returned to the lab and was ready to head home after finally closing what had been for her an emotionally draining case.<p>

She was more than a little relieved that Kate Price had not been behind the attack on Garland Clark – not directly, anyway. But Kate's scathing recount of their initial meeting over a year ago was still weighing heavily on her conscience. The case may have been solved, but for Lindsay at least, it wasn't over. She knew that the intense guilt that had risen up inside of her the other day would linger for a long time. She'd had no idea she'd been so inconsiderate, so unforgivably unavailable to a group of women that were looking to her for some kind of support, and perhaps even a friendly ear to just listen to what they had to say. Lindsay had been there – she'd been a victim of a violent crime herself – and she knew all too well how lonely and scared those women had been. And yet she'd not been able to drag herself away from her own life, her own issues which - looking back - seemed to pale in comparison to the daily struggle women like Kate Price experienced just trying to scratch out some modicum of a normal life.

Seeing that Danny wasn't in their office, Lindsay carried on down the hall. As she rounded the corner, she could hear voices carrying out into the corridor from the break room and she paused just outside the open doorway. She didn't really want to go in. The last thing she felt like doing at this particular moment in time was talking. She'd done enough talking over the past few days and all she wanted was to go home, stuff her face with some comfort food, kiss her daughter goodnight and curl up on the couch with Danny while watching the day's sports highlights or maybe some mindless made-for-TV movie; anything to keep her thoughts from returning to the case. And Kate Price.

"So, you think these guys deserved what they got?" she heard Jo ask in her distinctive southern drawl. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Not necessarily," Hawkes answered back. "They deserved a punishment for their actions, and they got it. Do I think that these women crossed a line when they decided to take matters into their own hands? Now that I think about it… yes. I do. They had information identifying known sexual predators and it would have been better if they had brought it to the proper authorities and let us do our jobs. But that being said… if we never found out who those women were and they just kept going, taking out predators one after the other… well, I for one would not be losing any sleep over it."

"I find that pretty hard to believe, Doc." Lindsay's ears perked up at the familiar lilt of her husband's accent. "You say that now, but you know as well as I do that what they did was wrong. And although we may not be particularly sympathetic to their victims, they _are_ still victims. And those women are still killers. And it's our job to find them and put them away, whether we respect their motives or not."

"You said earlier that you respected their determination, Danny," Jo pointed out. "And that if you were in their situation you thought you might do the same."

"No, that's not what I said," Danny corrected. "I told you that I _couldn't_ say that I _wouldn't_ do the same thing. There's a difference."

"Is there?" Hawkes asked.

"Yeah, there is," Danny shot back. Lindsay heard him let out a deep sigh, and in her mind's eye she could just picture him running his fingers through his hair as he tried to gather his thoughts. "Look, as a cop I have to trust in the system. If I ever found myself in a position where I had the choice between taking matters into my own hands or doing what the law says is right… I mean, if I decide to start doling out vigilante justice, I'm not only putting my job on the line, but I'm putting my life and my family's lives in jeopardy. And that is something that I refuse to do." He paused and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was full of barely constrained emotion.

"But you ask me as a husband and a father what I would do if some sicko laid a single finger on one of my girls? I like to think that I could trust that justice would run its course… but what I don't know is whether or not that would be enough for me. Would it be enough to see him rot in jail? I just don't know. And what if the system failed? We've all seen it happen… something goes wrong in an investigation or in the courtroom and the guy goes free. Would I be able to sleep at night knowing that he's out there? That there's a chance he could hurt someone else like he might have done to Lindsay or – God forbid – Lucy?" His voice broke and he trailed off, unable to finish his thought.

"Well here's to hoping that's a decision you'll never have to make," Jo said softly and Lindsay could hear the clink of her coffee cup against his.

Feeling somewhat shameful for eavesdropping on the threesome's conversation, Lindsay decided it was time to make her presence known, if only as a means to get Danny's attention so they could go. She sensed that this case had left everyone on the team feeling conflicted and a bit fragile. And hearing the protectiveness and emotion in her husband's voice, she got the distinct impression that he could use some quiet time alone and away from their colleagues just as much as she could.

"Hey guys," she said as she stepped through the doorway.

"Hey," Jo greeted her with a friendly smile. "How did it go with Kate?"

Lindsay sighed. "It went… alright. As well as can be expected, I suppose. I gave her my card, but…" She shrugged her shoulders.

Nearing the table, she bent down, wrapping her arms around Danny's neck and pressing her lips to his cheek. "Honey, I want to go home," she whispered in his ear.

He leaned back into her embrace, turning his head and giving her a small smile. "Okay. Let me get my coat and we'll go."

He stood, pecking Lindsay gently on the forehead before he disappeared down the hall to gather his things. Lindsay stayed behind, shifting her weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the silence that had descended upon the three of them. She was about to bid her two colleagues farewell, when Hawkes cleared his throat to catch her attention.

"Hey. About earlier…" he began, casting his eyes down to his nearly empty coffee cup and running his finger idly around its edge. "I wanted to apologize."

"You don't have to apologize, Sheldon. You didn't do anything other than speak your mind," Lindsay replied as she dropped down into Danny's recently vacated seat. Hawkes looked up at her, his expression still guarded. Lindsay offered him a timid smile. "We don't have to agree on everything, you know."

Hawkes's expression softened and he returned her smile with one of his own. "I know that," he said. He wrapped his hands around his cup and let out a heavy sigh. "It's just… it's been bothering me all day. I feel like I didn't express myself very well and maybe I offended you." He looked up at her, his usually stoic brown eyes full of emotion. "I've been on the receiving end of this type of violence," Hawkes said. "I wasn't exactly the victim, but my girlfriend was, and in the end, so was our relationship. I wanted the guy who did that to her to pay – big time. I want every guy that feels like its okay to take advantage of a woman in that way to pay." He sighed and once again lowered his gaze to his cup. "But I didn't mean to imply that because you're a woman you should automatically put aside your duties as a cop. I know that you take this job seriously – hell, we all do – and we see people do horrific things to one another every day. This one just hit closer to home for me and I wasn't thinking when I said that I thought you were defending the guy. So for that, I'm sorry."

Reaching out, Lindsay placed her hand on Hawkes's arm. "Thank you," she said. "I appreciate that." She wanted to elaborate, to tell him that she understood that some cases just resonated with you more because of things that had happened in your past, but at that moment she felt the soft pressure of a hand on her shoulder, and she turned in her seat to see Danny smiling down at her.

"Come on, babe. I'll take ya home."

Lindsay glanced quickly at Hawkes, giving his arm a comforting pat to show that there were no hard feelings between them. Then she got to her feet and let Danny wrap his arm around her shoulders and lead her down the hall toward the elevator.

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><p>The ride home was quiet. Danny drove while Lindsay sat in the passenger seat and stared contemplatively out of the window. She could feel his eyes on her every time they stopped at a light, but she just didn't feel like talking and he knew better than to force the matter. He would give her time and he wouldn't press her until she was ready. Part of her wished that they had something to fill the empty silence between them, but neither of them reached for the radio, nor was either of them in the mood for small talk. So the weight of the world began to settle once again in the pit of Lindsay's stomach and she felt an intense anger bubbling up inside her once more. Anger directed solely at herself; for her lack of sympathy, for her inability to show Kate and all of the other women out there how much she cared about them. Why was it so hard for her? She felt so much on the inside, and yet she clearly hadn't been able to manifest that on the outside. Was she really that cold? Was that how people really saw her?<p>

Danny was just as uncomfortable on the drive home as Lindsay. Despite her reassurances to the contrary, he could tell that she was upset about something and he had a good idea what that something was. The other night after she'd gone to visit Kate in lock-up, Lindsay had been near tears at dinner. But being her usual stubborn self, she'd refused to talk about it, claiming that it had simply been a long day and that she would be fine after a good night's sleep. But the next morning she'd been just as distant and he knew that whatever it was that had been bothering her the night before hadn't gone away overnight.

Now the case was closed, but his wife was still being uncharacteristically taciturn and Danny had just about had enough. He'd wanted to bridge the subject many times during their long rush-hour drive, but she'd seemed so far away and the scowl on her face told him that right now might not be the best time to bring it up. However, they were nearing their apartment and he knew his window of opportunity was closing quickly. Once they were in their home with Lucy monopolizing their attention they wouldn't have much time to talk until after she went to bed.

After squeezing the car into the small parking space reserved for them in the secure lot below their building, he got out of the car and quickly rounded the vehicle, offering Lindsay his hand, which she irritably swatted away. She pulled herself up and out of the car and began to push past him after slamming the car door behind her.

"Hang on a sec, Linds," he said softly, maneuvering himself so that he was standing in her way. "Are you okay?" She tried to sidestep him again, but he was too quick, managing to block her path a second time.

"Danny, stop it," she snapped. "I'm not in the mood for this. Please get out of my way."

Danny shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. "No."

"Danny, please!" she said through gritted teeth, trying one last time to get past him. But he reached out and caught her by the crook of the elbow. "Leave me alone!" she grumbled, trying to wrench her arm from his grasp.

Frustrated by her continual attempts to push him away, both physically and emotionally, Danny took her firmly by the shoulders and pushed her back up against the side of the car, angling his body to block her planned escape route. "Get… off… me!" she all but growled, placing her palms against his chest and giving him a hard shove.

"Lindsay!"

His tone was one of concerned exasperation and gave him one last half-hearted shove before she stopped struggling, averting her gaze from him with her face set in a deep frown.

"Let me go," she mumbled, her tone that of a petulant child who has just realized she's not getting her way. "Why are you being such an asshole?"

Danny sighed and relaxed his grip on her, raising his hands to tenderly frame her face and applying gentle pressure. He wasn't quite forcing her to look at him, but he wasn't giving her much of an option to do anything but. He bent his head and placed a kiss to her furrowed brow.

"I'm sorry you think I'm being an asshole," he began. "I know you've had a couple of shitty, shitty days, Linds. I know this case has been hard, but you have to know how hard it's been to see you so twisted up inside." He gently skimmed his thumbs across her cheeks, staring down into her eyes which were raging with emotions just itching to be let out. "I've tried to give you your space. I've left you alone for as long as I could bear, but I just can't watch from the sidelines anymore. I just wish you'd talk to me, babe. I only want to help."

"I'm fine," she whispered, and Danny wondered who she was trying to convince; him or herself? "Please… I just want to go upstairs."

Danny let out a heavy sigh. Sometimes Lindsay could be so open and forthcoming, but when she set her mind to keeping things bottled up inside, getting her to talk could be like opening a tin can without the luxury of a can opener. He knew that eventually she'd come around, but he wasn't the most patient of people and although he knew it shouldn't, it hurt that she didn't want to share whatever was bothering her with him.

Seeing that he was no closer to getting her to open up to him than he had been a few nights ago, Danny eventually caved. "Alright. Fine. We'll go upstairs," he relented frustratedly. He removed his hands from her face and took a step back, putting a physical distance between them. "But before we go, I need you to do me a favour, okay?" Lindsay made no reply, simply staring sullenly back at him and waiting for him to continue. "Look, Lucy's up there waiting for us. You know what she's like; she's a sponge and she's gonna pick up on this crappy mood of yours in less than a minute. So I need you to put all of this stuff aside for just a little bit. You can be pissed off at me and keep on giving me the cold shoulder all you want, but…"

"I'm not giving you the cold shoulder," Lindsay interrupted sharply, her brown eyes blazing. "And I'm not pissed off at you. At least I wasn't, but I'm rethinking that now that you said I was in a crappy mood."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Danny said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Because obviously your mood is all sunshine and kittens. My mistake. What was I thinking?"

Lindsay threw her arms in the air in exasperation. "Jesus, Danny! Everything isn't always all about you, you know! Did it ever occur to you that whatever's bothering me had absolutely nothing to do with you? It's not your problem."

"That's where you're wrong," Danny said quietly. He took a step toward her, closing the distance between them slightly. "The second it became your problem, it became mine. That's how it works with marriage. What's mine is yours, remember? For better or for worse." He reached out and ran a calloused finger over the swell of her cheek. "But in order for that to work you gotta let me in, Linds. I can't force you to talk to me if you don't want to… all I can do is let you know that I'm here if you need me. I'm sorry if you think I pushed too hard. I'll leave you alone if that's what you want. Just… you know. Whenever you're ready."

With that he turned and walked away, leaving Lindsay standing alone by the car. She watched him go, noticing the dejected slump of his shoulders. The anger that had built up in the pit of her stomach on the car ride home was quickly replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt. She'd been there; she'd been the one pushing to be let in and she knew how much it hurt to continually be kept at arm's length by the person that she loved more than anything else in the world. The sad part was, she wasn't even sure why she didn't want to confide in Danny. He was her best friend; she told him everything. So why was talking about this so difficult?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she followed Danny to the stairwell and up to their apartment.

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><p>Their evening was turning out to be nothing short of awkward. Danny was intent on avoiding her for the time being, busying himself in the kitchen getting dinner ready while she played with Lucy in the living room. She could hear him banging around, shutting drawers and cupboards a little harder than necessary, and she knew he was still upset. He was trying his best to take his own advice and keep his ill temper away from Lucy, but it wasn't helping Lindsay at all knowing that she was the cause of his current funk. And with every crash and bang from the kitchen, the knot of guilt in Lindsay's stomach grew just a little bit larger and more painful.<p>

They managed to get dinner out of the way and Lucy bathed and ready for bed with a minimum of conversation between the two of them. But after tucking the little girl into her big girl bed and ensuring that she'd had her fill of goodnight kisses and cuddles from each of them, there were no longer any distractions.

Lindsay closed Lucy's bedroom door after making sure that her nightlight was on and her favourite toys were nearby. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, bracing herself for the inevitable. She wandered into the living room, buying herself some more time by stooping to gather Lucy's scattered toys from the floor and stuffing them into the toy box in the corner. Danny was back in the kitchen and she could hear the water running in the sink and the soft clink of dishes being washed and set in the drying rack.

After putting the last of the toys away Lindsay entered the kitchen. Danny had his back to her and she could practically feel the waves of tension radiating from his body. She walked up behind her husband and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her forehead between his shoulder blades.

"I'm sorry, Danny," she whispered. "I never meant to push you away."

The tension in his body ebbed away and he relaxed in her arms. Setting aside the washcloth he turned, enfolding her in a tight hug and burying his face in her hair. "Oh, Linds," he sighed. "I never should have let it go as far as it did. I knew something was wrong days ago but I let it go and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry you had to go through all this on your own."

His hands rubbed soothing circles up and down her back and Lindsay found herself letting her defenses down. Tears welled up in her eyes and before she could stop herself, the floodgates opened and she poured her heart out to him; all of the guilt and anger at herself for her actions over a year ago and how they had come back to haunt her.

"I-I was just so ashamed," she sniffled into the front of his tear-stained shirt. "I had no right to treat those women that way and Kate… she just, she made me realize how thoughtless I'd been. And I had no excuse. She was standing there with this look of pure loathing on her face and I just… I felt so inadequate and useless."

Danny stroked her hair and pressed a loving kiss to her temple, offering her his silent support while she continued to talk through her troubles.

"I think… I think that's why I didn't want to tell you," she murmured, hanging her head. "I just… I needed you on my side and I guess I thought…" She broke off, not wanting to verbalize her thoughts, knowing how it was going to sound.

"You thought I'd judge you?" he suggested. Lindsay nodded miserably and hung her head. Danny let out a sigh and tightened his arms around her. "Babe, look at me."

Slowly, Lindsay lifted her eyes to meet the steady gaze of her husband. "You're not perfect, Linds. Nobody expects you to be…"

"Oh, thanks a lot," Lindsay moaned, lowering here forehead onto his chest. "Jerk."

Danny chuckled and kissed the top of her head. "Hear me out, will ya?" Lindsay grunted noncommittally, so he continued. "As I was saying, you're not perfect, but that's okay with me. You come a hell of a lot closer to perfect than anyone I've ever met. You're loving, intelligent, caring… and I think that the fact that you're beating yourself up over this shows just how much you really do care. If Kate Price said the same thing to someone else, I'd have a hard time believing they would have taken it to heart half as much as you have."

"Yeah, but…"

"But nothing," Danny interrupted. "So you checked your watch a few times. So what? Sweetheart, you're a busy working mom. You're entitled to have a life outside of that meeting. I mean, you were probably thinking about picking up Lucy from preschool, finding time to do the grocery shopping, getting the laundry on, going to the gym, taking the car in for servicing, nagging your lazy husband… all those things that you somehow manage to keep track of in that beautiful head of yours." He smiled and stroked a finger across her temple. "Did you ever stop to think that even so, Kate Price still approached you for help after your meeting? Why would she have done that if she thought you didn't care? Or if she thought you were useless and inadequate?"

Lindsay was stumped. She'd never thought about it like that before. "Maybe… well, I mean I was an authority figure," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "She asked me for a gun, Danny. She probably thought I was so distracted I'd just hand my piece over to her without a second thought."

Danny shook his head. "I don't see it like that," he said firmly. "No, I think she saw something more in you; she saw someone she could trust and who really wanted to help her."

Lindsay leaned forward and rested her cheek against Danny's chest, letting the steady beat of his heart calm her swirling emotions. "Still… she was so angry at me, Danny. I'll never forget the look on her face when she told me why she remembered me from that meeting."

Danny tightened his grip on her, wishing he could take all the hurt and worry off his wife's slight shoulders. "She's got a lot to be angry about, Linds. But you know as well as I do that you can't take it personally. You were a convenient outlet for her anger and frustration, but that doesn't mean that she'll feel that way forever. I mean, she took your card, right?" Lindsay nodded morosely. "Well, now you wait and see. Hopefully she'll give you another chance to show her what a wonderful person you really are."

"Yeah, I guess," Lindsay sighed. She sunk into Danny's warm embrace, nuzzling her cheek into the crook of his neck. "I heard you, Jo and Hawkes talking today."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Um… in the break room after work."

"Did you now? You little eavesdropper," Danny teased. "What about it?"

"I just… I wondered if you wanted to talk about it; what you said to Jo about if anything ever happened to me or… or Lucy?"

Danny's grip on her tightened protectively. "No. I don't want to talk about it. Because talking about it means thinking about it, and I just can't go there. You two… you're everything to me. You've both already come too close to danger for my taste," Danny said, and Lindsay knew he was thinking back to their ill-fated vacation last year when Shane Casey had threatened their small family not once, but twice. "That was bad enough. But even the thought of anyone getting close enough to you either of you to violate you in the way that Kate Price or any of those other women were violated…" He broke off and buried his face in her shoulder, his hold on her now almost uncomfortably tight. "I don't know what I'd do, Linds. I'd want to see justice done. And I hope that I'd be able to let the system take care of that for us. But if it failed, if that man got away…" He broke off and relaxed his hold on her, gently cupping her face in his hands, his blue eyes filled with emotion. He took a shaky breath before continuing. "I guess I'll just have to settle for never letting either of you out of my sight. _Ever_. We'll build a tower for Lucy and as for you… I'll just have to cuff you to me. It's the only way to make sure you're always safe."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Lindsay's lips. "Oh, you're gonna break out the cuffs on me, are you?" she teased.

"It's for your own good, babe," Danny replied.

"Mmm… for my own good. Right," Lindsay chuckled. She reached up and ran her fingers through Danny's short crop of messy hair. "I love you so much. You know that right?"

Danny smiled crookedly. "Yeah, I know. I love you too."

"I'm sorry I didn't come to you sooner. I wish I had," she lamented. "I promise that next time… whatever it is, we'll talk about it, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Danny replied, lowering his face to brush his lips against hers. "Just remember that I'm on your side, Linds."

"I know you are," Lindsay murmured. "Thank you." She raised herself onto her tiptoes and sealed Danny's mouth with her own, drawing him into a kiss that left them both dizzy and breathless. Breaking apart when their mutual need for air became too great, Lindsay toyed with the buttons on Danny's shirt, eyeing him coyly through her lashes. "Now… I believe you mentioned something about handcuffs?"

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><p><strong>Meh. Not super happy with the ending of this one, but I hope it works.<strong>

**I had a bit of a hard time with their little spat… I just love seeing happy, fluffy Messer-family love way too much and it's not easy for me to write them arguing. ****But it is a big part of any relationship – being able to argue and settle your differences like grown-ups is the only way to make a marriage work.**

**Also, I liked the idea that Danny has learned his lesson and is finally the one to fight to get Lindsay to break down her walls instead of what we usually see on the show; Lindsay trying to get Danny to open up.**

**I hope you liked my little switch up and that it rings true to the spirit of the episode. I'd love to hear your thoughts! If there's enough people interested, I may have a few more post-eps to crank out before the big day on Friday!**

***rhymes***


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